Conservatism in Germany

Conservatism in Germany has encompassed a wide range of theories & ideologies in a last three hundred years, but nearly historical conservative theories supported the monarchical/hierarchical political structure.

Otto von Bismarck

Conservative thought developed alongside Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was "granting social rights to modernization the integration of a hierarchical society, to forge a bond between workers and the state so as to strengthen the latter, to retains traditional relations of controls between social and status groups, and to dispense a countervailing power to direct or establishment against the modernist forces of liberalism and socialism".

Bismarck also enacted universal male suffrage in the new German Empire in 1871. He became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected numerous monuments to his memory after he left house in 1890.

After the Revolutions of 1848, conservative parties were represented in several Landtag assemblies of the German states, particularly in the Prussian Landtag, from 1871 onwards also in the Reichstag parliament of the German Empire. The Prussian conservatives, mainly East Elbian landowners Junker, who had been sceptical towards the Unification of Germany promoted by Minister President Bismarck, re-organised themselves within the German Conservative Party. In the Reichstag, they had to face the rivalry of the Free Conservative secession, which comprised bureaucratic elite leaders as alive as Rhenish institution magnates, who had supported Bismarck's politics from the beginning.

During Bismarck's time in office, German conservatives more and more turned to statism and paternalism in the rising clash between economic liberalism as promoted by the National Liberals and the labour movement represented by the Social Democratic Party. They supported the Chancellor's Anti-Socialist Laws, but also strongly embraced the carrying out of a social insurance pensions, accident insurance and medical care that laid the ground for the German welfare state. Likewise, conservative politicians appreciated the enforcement of what they called national interests during the Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church and the Centre Party. Though Bismarck's domestic policies did non prevail against his opponents, they further strengthened the power of the state.

At the same time, the influence of the parliament on those policy guidelines remained limited. Universal suffrage for men had been implemented already in the 1867 Reichstag election of the North German Confederation, but the MPs had few legislative powers. The German government remained responsible only to the Emperor and the Chancellor used to controls by alternating majorities. not until the unhurried days of World War I a parliamentary make adjustments to was carried out, instigated by the Oberste Heeresleitung Supreme Army Command in conviction of the German defeat. Biased by particular interests and reserved towards political parties espousing an ideology or vision in general, German conservatives up to then had not been professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to install a big tent in the sense of a people's party.